Denise Stewart-Sanabria

March Exhibits

2012-01-30T19:49:00.000-08:00

"Quantum Confusion"
Custom House Museum in their Orgain Gallery Clarksville, TN
March 15 – May 20
This is the latest location of this traveling installation, which has been shown at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville's Ewing Gallery, The Appalachian Center for Craft/Tennessee Tech in Smithville, TN, Open Concept Gallery during ArtPrize 2011 in Grand Rapids, MI, and will be seen this Sept. 29 - Nov. 3, 2012 at the Yeiser Art Center in Padukah, Kentucky, along with work by Christine Wuenschel.
This work is charcoal on plywood with plexiglass.

WAR OF THE LAWN ORNAMENTS/ This is no Garden Party.....The Balcony at the Emporium Center
100 Gay Street, Knoxville, TN
March, 2012: Opening Reception, March 2, 5:30 -9:00 PM

“War of the Lawn Ornaments”
An investigative, interactive exhibit by:
Alan Finch and Denise Stewart-Sanabria

Five thousand years ago, in Mesopotamia, marble sculptures of giant bunnies and the god Enlil stood before a rural stone house. Not really. Or did they? Yard art has surely been around for a long time in the gardens of countless cultures in both divine and tasteless form. In our own country it has ranged from the spiritual to the tacky to the offensive. Who made these concrete icons originally? What was their motivation? Why do people persist in buying certain statues that seem to celebrate shameful moments in our country’s history? Are frogs really that cute? Why do only Catholics put Madonnas in their yards, but Protestants like St. Francis in their gardens? Do little boys really urinate into giant shells?Last year Clinton artist Alan Finch stumbled upon a remote find of almost Pompeian magnitude. Though never covered in volcanic ash, and in fact still in business, it had the air of a lost time and culture. It needed the kind of anthropological investigation only artists can manage. He contacted Knoxville artist Denise Stewart-Sanabria and proposed a collaborative project: the “War of the Lawn Ornaments”. Using mainly alternative photo processes, such as lomography, pinhole, and I-pad images, they documented the undisclosed site, adding dioramas and found object installations to fully capture the depth of the experience. Warning: This is an investigative exhibit containing images that made the artists cringe and occasionally declare “WTF”?
This exhibit is being exuberantly funded by The Society for the Preservation of Lawn Art, which is located in another undisclosed location in the Greater Appalachia region.

Inclusion in new publication

2011-11-21T16:45:00.001-08:00

I've been included in the first INPA (International Painting Annual), produced by Manifest Gallery and Press of Cincinatti, Ohio. http://www.manifestgallery.com/manifestpress/index.htmlI will also have work in their INDA 6 (International Drawing Annual), whose release date is coming up anytime now.Manifest is a strong presence in Ohio and their upper mid-states region as a progressive gallery space seeking and exhibiting emergent work, and producing excellent publications, not only their annual surveys such as the INDA and INPA, but exhibit catalogs for every show they hang.

Paparazzi View at The Arts Company/Nashville, TN

2011-11-11T08:06:00.001-08:00

Nashville Arts Magazine had the idea that I interview myself for this exhibit: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/250f12a2#/250f12a2/18

November, 2011/The Arts Company/Nashville, TN www.theartscompany.com This month, Jerry Parks, a Nashville photographer, and myself have a very Nashville-centric exhibit at The Arts Company. It was the gallery's 15th anniversary at it's downtown location, so it had to be all about the Nashville scene! I've got 35 charcoal drawings on plywood of people who attend and are a part of Nashville First Saturday Art Crawls. Five are full scale and free-standing,and the thirty smaller ones are mounted on wall shelves. Jerry has a series of photographs of the work spaces of iconic Nashville businesses, from Hatch Show Print to DelGado Guitars.

Detail of part of the gallery wide installation. The conceptual aspect of what I often do with plywood people has to do with replicating social and cultural behaviors of humans within various goups. Arts communities, no matter where they are in the world, have recognizable familiarity to the people that are a part of them-a certain like mindedness and attitude. When humans bond over shared interests, they almost become a form of international tribe. Like Trekkies, for example...ok-bad example.

Jerry Park's "Hatch Show Print"

Staff action: Tinnen vacuming the garage space, Brian surveying. Not too many galleries are attached to both a private parking garage or have an additional massive 2nd floor gallery space in addition to their street floor gallery. This means that that the gallery can do witty things, like have "garage sales". Yes-it's ironic!

Jerry and I got to talk about our work during the Friday night Collector's Night preview.

Brian Downey (gallery assistant) Anne Brown (director), Uh oh??, Nashville mayor Karl Dean, and me. Yes, I drew the mayor. He was hanging around one of the times when I was collecting photo references, and it was important to have many of the people important to the Nashville downtown arts and museum scene represented.

One of my full scales checking out Jerry's photos and my lomography work on the table. I take lots of lomography photos around Nashville, and print only one of each negative. Yes, lomography is analog. So, each one is an original, either on rag paper mounted on the panel, or transfered on into gesso-and they are "coffee table book from Amazon" priced. In fact, if you buy more than one, the price goes down per unit!

More plywood people in yet another corner. I knew who many of the people I drew were-some I had no clue. I don't ask people permission. That would ruin everything-it would become self-consious, and rendered artificial.

Opening night. People find themselves. And mug!

Talking with Marshall Fallwell who writes for www.artnownashville.com Acually, the reason I'm posting this is because it is about the only photo of myself where I don't look like a squirrel that has the mange.

Jerry holding court.

It was a nice turnout on a night where it didnt get cold or rain, and where the sidewalk freebee of the night was a local coffee company making free drinks. Nashville Downtown 1st Saturday Art Crawls include The Arts Company, Rymer Gallery, and Tinney Contemporary, lined up along North 5th Ave. of the Arts, with also a ton of galleries across the street in the 2nd floor of The Arcade Building. Twist is my favorite up there. Also, down at Broadway and Rosa Parks Blvd. is The Tennessee Art League building, where there are multiple exhibits at any given time. Unfortunately, Estel Gallery on Rosa Parks closed this month so owner Cynthia Bullinger could pursue other things. She ran the awesome gallery for five years and represented some amazing people, two of whom are friends of mine and who loved working with her. Estel's will be surely missed.

Denise Goes to ArtPrize

2011-10-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

ArtPrize is an international art event currently in its 3rd year, held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. http://www.artprize.org/ It holds the largest cash prizes of any art event in the world, at $484,ooo; $449,000 of which is voted by the public. The remaining $35,000 amount is used in a juried vote by a panel of arts writers and curators. Around 160 venues host artists, from museums, universities, and sculpture gardens to restaurants and hotels in the city, for 19 days in September through October. It is a juried event. Artists submit a page about themselves and their work, venues submit a page about their space. Then, the artists "link" to only the venues they are interested in. The venue juries from this pool. Some venues are professionally juried, such as the museums, universities and galleries. The rest is done by each individual business staff of each hotel, restaurant, coffee bar, church, or public arena, such as the convention center and the Gerald Ford Library. A total of 1,582 artists from 42 states and 37 countries were hosted this year.

Part 1: My Venue, Open Concept Gallery

The staff arrives at Open Concept Gallery. This gallery is a progressive project space, located in a hundred-year old Masonic temple in the sixth floor of the Trade Center Building, one block from the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Access is by a massive, vintage freight elevator. The exhibit was curated by Nicole Turner, who is a photography professor at Kendall College of Art and Design.

When you go to an event like this, it is important to bring every possible tool, prop, and piece of promotional material you can scrape up. The gallery might not have everything you need. I brought floor spots and clamp lights, all of which were used. I had at least 2,000 exhibit cards and bookmarks get picked up from the gallery and off the street where I was working.

Bill Brown and curator Nicole Turner mug with "Quantum Confusion"

This was the first time I hung the two 4' x 8' plexi sheets used in this installation by a horizontal support cable. It went from one wall to a balcony post. I padded the post wrap, and used turnbuckles to tighten it. Bill Brown, an artist from Lansing, MI, was brilliant helping me get them in place. It took a looooong time because:

they only had one floor ladder. Sara Gauthier and her dad were installing her ten foot high graphite drawing, "Abraham, Martin and John" on the same day. So, we kept trading the ladder back and forth as we worked. Gauthier's drawing was on multiple sheets of paper that had to be exactly positioned and pinned in place to avoid sagging. These were all the paper problems I used to have that led me to working on plywood.

"Quantum Confusion", and to the right, Chicago's Richard Pociask's amazing three-dimensional graphite drawing installation, "Drawn to a Drawing".

Theodore Carrozza's Giant wooden carved flamingos came in from New Jersey.

Adrian Waggoner, from Salt Lake City, Utah, installs his diptych "Young Saints and Old Martyrs", which also incorporated the use of real gold leaf. It was amusing to watch the reaction of some people when confronted by the nudity in these breathtakingly beautiful paintings. I particularly wanted to wop upside the head one woman that I saw make an icky face when she looked at the martyrs. She did a complete turnabout and left. What a sicko. I'm not sure how some people get messed up like that. (She was with her husband, poor man.)

Old Martyrs

Overview from the balcony

William Gerrish's "Element of Danger". Gerrish is from Sault Sainte Marie, MI

Prints by Meridith Adamisin of Royal Oaks, MI

"The Sweet Swell of Success", by Amanda Joseph of Chicago, IL

"He is Flying High", by Mikiko Kano of NY, NY

"KT and the Second Coming", by Adrian Hatfield of Fernale, MI. Yes-it is 3D diorama style. Yes- I love this piece. It makes me crazy.

"The Dead Matador", a self-portrait by Sadie Starnes of Tokyo, Japan

A couple of Bill Brown Jr's clay "Whimsicles". I think they wanted to go hang out with the bird and dinosaur. I know I would. Brown is using them to make animations.

"Drawn to a Drawing" by Richard Pociask. EVERYTHING in this is a graphite drawing, including the plaid on the shirt (I think... using water-soluble graphite?), the image on the bag, the pattern on the kleenex box, even the texture on the rocks.

detail

Part 2: Six Days Drawing Outside

I was on deadline for my November exhibit at The Arts Company in Nashville, TN so, though I wanted to hang out for the 1st week of voting at ArtPrize, I still needed to work. So, I brought my work with me. I rigged my hand truck into a heavy duty street easel, and figured I could market my venue best and get my work done at the same time by being out with the crowds working and handing out exhibit/venue cards. Would the cops bug me? Nope. As a cruiser drove by, she just rolled her window down and yelled "Are you doing all that with a pencil?" I was good with the cops. And the meter maids, ex-cons... but not with the gross guy who thought he could get me to go out to dinner with him. Yeah, right. He didn't understand how my husband could let me go off and come up there all by myself. I explained to him what a business trip was. He started insulting my work after I turned him down. Prick. Actually, he was the only creep. The city was beautiful, and the people were really nice and very friendly.

The Grand Rapids public school system lets the kids and the teachers out of school for an all day field trip going to art venues, listening to artist lecture, and... hanging around me in front of the Grand Rapids Art Museum! They have a nice park there. I swear I met every student in town. The real pesty ones got to try out the pencils and smudge sticks on the side of the plywood. Three girls decided to smudge the charcoal onto their faces like football players and ran off. At the last second one stopped and asked "This will wash off, right?"

Part 3: Out on the street and reactions to stuff that got my attention.

Note: This event is incredibly inclusive. It attracts everyone from every level and area of the art world. Self-taught, outsider artists, hobbyists, BFA's and MFA's who exhibit regularly in museums and universities, emergent and mid career, progressive and traditional, and well known sculptors who have public work in cities all across the country. What you see where depends on the background of the people jurying the particular venue. Some people say art is totally subjective-well, taste is what is subjective. Art can be judged by both technical and intellectual content. It was all there, from the pedestrian, to the sublime, to the witty.

"What the Truck" is a great name for a mobile food kitchen.

Believe it or not, this was a $7,000 public vote winner. Painted construction worker Mimes. The mimes in Asheville are much better. When was that "live mannequin" fad? The 1980's? There was a lot of anger from the art community over what the public voted for, and I must admit they chose more challenging work last year, but the public vote is a more innocent vote. The kids liked these guys. Another winner was a bunch of chain saw carved bears they had on rocks in the Grand River, by a Michigan artist! I didn't know they did that up there-I thought we owned that genre here in Tennessee, dammit. I'm going to try to get all the guys from the Gatlinburg area up there next year. Heck-they can even do chain saw Jesus here. Let's have a chain saw sculpture battle-North vs South. These guys were in the parking lot of the BOB (big old building) which was the the most heavily visited and, unfortunately, worst curated outdoor location.

This fish is coming out of bricks, with names carved on them like "Vince Gill" and "Salmon Rushdie". I declare a jihad.

If you want to let people have your business card on an outside metal sculpture, use magnetic business cards and stick them everywhere! Who cares if they distract from the work..... (Am I getting too snarky yet? I promised myself I would behave.)

I want to know where the leprechaun is. This piece sucks without the leprechaun. A leprechaun would at least help to make it deliberately tacky ...and hence, ironic! At the BOB

Okkkkkkk...this one was done by young, I think white, performance artists from NYC looking for a political theme. If it was done by elderly African Americans from Alabama it would have authenticity, and I wouldn't have laughed when the wind blew the signs down. At the BOB

I just love this. Hilarious. It was in the window of a tanning salon. They turned the window into a "Photography Studio" window. There were a ton more photos, but I wanted details of just a few.
I don't like having my picture taken, but I would eagerly let this person outdo themselves with me.

Students from Kendall College take to the streets, modeling some of the hand felted art dresses by one of their hosted artists, Horst and Je'siq.

In an event like this, you get a certain number of works created for the event that focus on pandering for votes. This was my Pandering mega winner. Take hometown hero President Gerald Ford, make him in fiberglass resin, holding a pipe, and contemplating a bronze bust of himself. Encase it in a glass box (kinda like sleeping beauty's coffin, except upright) and put it on a podium surrounded by flags and flag bunting on the sidewalk, outside the convention center. OK every one sing along....God Bless America... (by the way, the artist, Sunti Pichetchaiyakul, is from Thailand, and the piece was technically very well done, and even had a creepiness that made me like it despite myself). He spent the entire time by his piece on the sidewalk, sculpting a bust of recently deceased Betty Ford...for some spiritual reason, the newspaper or some other source said. I'm glad there was another artist outside working, people really like to watch. It makes the event more interesting. There was even a venue that was entirely for performing musicians and composers, that were scheduled for the entire event.

What was that toy called... Barrel of Monkeys? It really worked on the Blue Bridge. Massachusetts sculptor. He was running around promoting himself by handing out small monkey key chains. He dropped one in my pencil box while I was working. I texted him a vote.

My parents never bought me one because they were more expensive than the match box trucks they'd buy me in the hardware store. I still have my matchbox trucks, but I still want a Tonka. I want this one, even if they had to spell the name wrong.

This girl is annoyed because she knows the difference between "glitter" and sequins.

Einstein in paddle balls. I really think there needs to be a punishment for artists who use photos of Einstein for anything. It has been overdone. Did you know that fully half of all eighth graders in this country have used a photo of Einstein to do a portrait drawing during 2nd semester? I want to pass the "No more Einstein portraits" law. Shit, the problem is the darn thing is quite well done and funny as hell.

Yup. A hand cast iron pan for all 48 contiguous states, mounted on a 4' x 8' 3/4" birch plywood sheet. Can you guess the weight? I've injured my wrist handling my own pan cooking. Lodge, USA needs to buy this for their corporate headquarters. Do they have artists in residence? Kohler, the toilet, sink and faucet people do.

This was an autobiographical piece about the artist's introduction to art as a kid, with a paint-by-numbers set. It was witty and beautifully executed. I'm sure a lot of the artists walking by got flashbacks. I know I did.

I want to talk about the importance of locating work in group exhibits. There needs to be a certain flow, and conceptual considerations for proximity of one work to the other. I'm standing on the 2nd floor walkway, looking down... crucifixion, and up... giant mouse trap. Oh, snap. (sorry-that was bad). These two works, the skillet map and paint-by-numbers, were in the Convention Center, a nice big building, but kind of challenging for exhibiting art. The crucifixion, by Chicago artist Mia Tavonatti, was a glass mosaic and won the $250,000 public vote 1st prize, amid some anger and outcries from artists about religious art. I thought that was odd, considering that this is about the number one subject matter for Western Art in the last 1,500 years. I think the glass pieces were even hand made. Sure, it wasn't Casimo Cavalleros's six foot tall, chocolate, "My Sweet Lord", so there was nothing edgy going on, but it's the public vote. It was really well executed, and would have made an incredible statement in some church, but is now owned by ArtPrize. The top award is a purchase award.

Part 4: Stuff I really, really liked.

Of the venues I got a chance to visit, the exhibits at Kendall College of Art and Design, and the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (UICA), were hands down the best. No weaknesses, just solid, excellent, progressive, challenging work fantastically presented. The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) was also excellent, but had a few weak spots, which surprised me. Above image is of Jonathan Brilliant's "Have Sticks Will Travel", a site specific piece built out of coffee stir sticks right outside the college's cafe. It was organic, airy, and a wonderful piece to observe while people explored it. Half its power was in how it filtered the view of everything else that was seen through it.

Alas, this is what happened during take down day. I should have asked for a chunk to bring home. Damn-I just thought of that.

"Two for Tea" by Tanya Lyons of Lachute, Quebec- at the GRAM

Fellow Tennessee artist, Natalie Andrews (with Rymer Gallery, Nashville), had this fantastic piece at the GRAM. Yes, the sign said to interact with it, and if 6 to 12 year old kids could vote, it would have gotten the $250,000 award.

The kids were so wild I even saw one trip and fall face first. The guards just ignored it. I was wondering what Natalie would think, so I iPAD'd a low res image and sent it to her, and she thought it was funny, so all was well. I hope there wasn't too much damage. It was attached very well to the ceiling.

Back at Kendall College, we have, to the left, the third piece at ArtPrize from a Tennessee artist, my Knoxville buddy Katie Walberg's "Traveling Trashball", an interactive graphic novel series (alas, sans Mr. Trashball himself). And to the right, Saint Louis artist Mimi Kato's unbelievably entertaining "One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary Town". Inspired by 16th century Japanese paintings, all the characters contained are self portraits of the artist. Cindy Sherman would have an awesome time hanging out with Mimi. I bet they could do one hell of a collaboration. This was my favorite piece of everything I saw at ArtPrize, and I sure did the Happy Dance when the juror panel gave it first award: 2D.
Two details below:

"Atrium" at Kendall-Monica Ponce de Leon and Maciej Kaczynski.

At UICA, they have very specific and unusual gallery sizes, making artists work way ahead to come up with site specific projects. This was a very deserving jury award winner for best 3D:

"Nature Preserve", by Michele Brody of NYC.

Yes-this is one of UICA's gallery spaces-under the floor behind plexiglass. The piece inside is inflatable vinyl, and it was attached to a pump, and it breathed.

Another piece at the UICA-the morphing of a Mary sculpture. It was small, and started off very degraded, on one side, to completely formed at the other end. The distortion is due to my Sony pan-sweep camera.

I didn't win anything, but I sold a street piece that I was working on, met a ton of people, and had a great time. And scored a front page image on October 3rd in the Grand Rapids Press! Yes, the reporter has his hand pressed on my plexiglass. I actually like this. The amount of hand and finger prints all over it at the end of an exhibit, plus dusty footprints on the floor bases, indicate that people had fun interacting with my plywood people and their situation.

Would I do this event again which required three twenty-hour round trips to Michigan? You bet, but I'd have to have something worthy of being hosted again, by one of the professionally juried venues. I don't want to be in Dave's Tacos.

September Exhibit in Asheville at 16 Patton

2011-08-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

"The Beautification"

Beautification by unnatural method runs rampart in our culture. From botox for teenagers to hair color for pets, we've covered it all. The unnatural beautification of our food is nothing new, from artificial coloring, frosting, and decorative surface finishes. Not only did I focus on some of our classic pretty gastronomic indulgences, I decided to up it a notch by using actual cosmetics for some extreme effects in some of the paintings in this exhibit. There is something very appetizing about nail polish. The colors are luscious, the shine sensuous. It looks divine drizzled on fruit, until the noxious fumes remind you that it can't be eaten. It just looks fabulous.

Opening reception will be Friday, Sept. 2nd from 5-8 PM, 16 Patton Gallery, 16 Patton Avenue, Asheville, NC.

Stuck in Glamour

Powdered and Rouged

Punctured and Polished

Luxury Lime Creme

Polished Key Limes

Key Lime Drip

Glitter Polish Red

Bare Key Limes

Artificial Red

Squished Zinger

Twisted Jimmies

Lomography Series heading to Nashville

2011-08-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

I'm about to deliver the 1st of 2 groups of lomography photos to The Arts Company for Sept., all shots taken downtown this July....these are a few of them that are going. They are all archivally printed on rag paper, and mounted onto wooden box back frames.

Denise and Alison do DC

2011-07-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Alison Oakes and I needed to head to Target Gallery in the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA to pick up our work that was on exhibit in "In the Flesh 3", earlier this week, http://www.torpedofactory.org/galleries/target.htm so we decided to hit the National Gallery in DC. They had a special exhibit by 17th cent. Dutch genre painting Gabriel Metsu we had to see.

It takes eight hours, so I picked Alison up at 5AM. This means I had to pick up coffee and a veggie egg white wrap at 4:30 AM in Cedar Bluff. The Dunkin Donuts there is no longer a 24 hour one-they didn't open until 5AM. Jerks. Alison was ready right on time with a cooler of food and her bags of important stuff.

We hit the Rt. 40 Dollywood exit right when the McDonald's opened at 5:30 AM for coffee and a no-meat egg McMuffin. Not that bad. Alison went back to sleep while I drove into the dawn coming over the approaching Blue Ridge. Coming close to Johnson City, I experienced horror. I saw it come out from the median-a tiny piece of fur that was running, blindly running. It was a rat. I like rats. I instantly calculated all the possible parameters that would ensure me not hitting the rat with either of my tires...change lanes, slow, swerve. Not one was doable, so it was up to the rat. The rat failed, and ran under one of my tires. this was horrible. I needed absolution for this event. Alison was needed to give it to me, but she was still sleeping. Shit. A few miles down the rode, I passed Megabus on it's way back from it's nightly DC run.

Eventually Alison was woken up by the sun shining in her face, and I told her about the kamikaze rat. We invented a narrative where the rat was really a bad rat who had been up all night womanizing and cooking meth, and was just running home in time to not get caught by his family. That was better.

We got to DC before 2, and only had to do three rotations around the block before we got a parking spot.

We Arrive.

I'm not sure what this installation with all the rocks was, but it was cool.

Alison finds a Bryon Kim and swoons. The tiled piece is a portrait of the skin tone of a whole ton of friends, family and fellow artists. The key, which I've inserted above the photo, shows everybodies name. Alison wants to do more smaller tiled pieces again after she looks at it.

I'd never seen Kerry James Marshall in person before....nice!

Wayne Thiebaud!

We now look for food. They've got a great cafetaria located between the twin opium addiction that is their art bookstore. I cannot be allowed to penetrate this too deeply, but I find a cool book called "Good Bye Kitty: Comtemporary Japanese Art" I need to see how much that is on Amazon.

Alison gets some good stuff.

I get something I can play with and mutilate. It also worked with coffee.

I needed to do reserch on molding construction of alters for something i'm planning, and they had tons of them.

Alters, alters.

More stuff we liked.. (we couldn't photograph the Metsu's since they wern't the galleries property)

Alison like the flesh tones, but decided the landscape background sucked.

I really liked the cat. The guy is pissing it off, I think.

Jan van Eyke details- an Astrology floor.

Same piece-rainbow wings and jewel details. Amazing stuff.

This guy looked like he was watching people in the gallery out his window.

We barely touched on what ws in there before we had to leave, but I had no idea of the quantity of iconic pieces of western art they owned. Alison took notes for upcoming lectures in her art history classes for her students at Pellissippi. (I need to send her the big jpgs for that...)

We made out own alter piece using the drinking fountain in the woman's rest room.

THEN we head to Alexandria. I got screwed up just once and we ended up at the gates of the Pentagon. I made a u-turn that I think was legal.

Alison, Allison the gallery director, and my dismantled installation. The show went great, got reviewed and viewed. Target Gallery has international juried themed exhibits most of the year, with a couple curated here and there. Unlike most juried exhibit, they don't get higher concentrations of local submittals. It all just comes from everywhere, all the time. Alison had been in "In the Flesh 1", and I was in last fall's 5" x 5" photography exhibit, and we really noticed that-and liked it.

We went to eat dinner at Mai Thai restaurant, which is just up the street and is really good despite a somewhat snotty waitress. I was so hungry I forgot to take pictures of the food.

Alison on the walkway by the Potomac. A lightening storm started up, so we got out and headed the 2 1/2 hours out to Harrisonburg-just far enough to find good hotels cheap. We saw the end of Inception and still can't figure out if he is in reality or not.

Alison gets to drive the Cargo-Caravan. She felt the power of Super Mini Van.

After i took over the wheel, Alison used my camera to do some work. I can see this on a 2'x2' porcelain tile! www.alisonoakes.com

We're back! Justin unloads Alison's piece from the show.

I check out Justin's organic garden, and score 3 cucumbers, some thai hot peppers, and some mint!

Solo Exhibit, Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech

2011-06-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

My charcoal drawing on plywood quantum physics Installation "Quantum Confusion", which I'm trying to tour like a hyper Indie Band, will be at Tennessee Tech's Satellite campus, The Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, TN, until Aug 19th. The center is 6 miles south of the Smithville exit, and the 1st left after the bridge over Caney Fork River, which is massive at that location. The campus is deep in the woods, and is a collection of teaching studio buildings, arranged by media. The main building contains two gallery spaces, a gift shop where you can buy fantastic work from both the faculty and other regional artisans (including some of my friends :-)), and a really, really good cafe. Their hummus salad plate is the best I've ever had.

My installation is in Gallery Two, which means you have to go through the gift shop to get there, and, ha- "Exit Through the Gift Shop" to leave. (Thank you, Banksy!) The gallery architecture is very sculptural-it has a sloping wood slat ceiling with big beams, and an extension area with huge windows looking into the woods.

The lighting makes cool shadows in the back.

Detail. The lighting with the rest of the space in shadows makes reflections really strong.

Gallery One had a Studio Instuctors exhibit-killer glass, ceramic, paintings made from dyed and textured paper pulp, mixed media work, and a cockroach in a tiny silver and copper coffin. I know students who've gone to school here, and they hate to leave. One of my friend's daughters even slept in her car just to afford to be here. I don't blame her-this place is another world.

ArtPrize

2011-06-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

My installation, "Quantum Confusion", will be hosted by Open Concept Gallery http://www.openconceptgallery.org/ in the 2011 ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan from Sept. 21-Oct. 10.

ArtPrize, in it's 3rd year, is one of the most unusual art events internationally, and can best be described on it's website: http://www.artprize.org/.

In the meantime, "Quantum Confusion" will be installed later this week in Gallery 2 at The Appalachian Center for Craft/Tennessee tech in Smithville, TN, untill Aug. 19th.

June 3rd Asheville Art Walk/Crawl

2011-06-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 3rd, 2011 from 5-8 is the next Asheville, NC Downtown Art Walk. Danna Anderson at 16 Patton is getting "Twisted Jimmies" ready for the window that looks all the way down Patton Ave. Anybody getting a donut urge after seeing it while walking or driving up the one-way section of that street will have some trouble-despite Asheville being a food-topia, I don't think anyone downtown sells donuts. They'll just have to buy the painting. It is even better than the real thing-0 calories.

Besides my Produce Paintings and one more snack cake painting at the gallery, there will be some plywood people hanging around.

Megabus won't be my buddy

2011-04-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

I tried to talk Megabus into letting me buy an extra seat to carry a packed up plywood people piece to the DC area, and they turned me down. Rats. It would have cost an x-tra $15.00, added to my $15.00 out, and $10.00 back. Then, I would have had to pay for one bus to get the couple of miles to Alexandria, VA, (maybe $1.00?) then one free trolley to the Torpedo Factory's Target Gallery. So much for my efforts to use public transportation. if this was South America, they'd even let me bring my free-range chickens!

More Exhibits/ Spring 2011

2011-03-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

I've got some of my plywood people in "Mountain Visions", at the Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. (The exhibit name doesn't fit the show-it's very progressive)

The exhibit was juried by Greg Shelnutt, who is a professor at the North Carolina School of Art in Winston-Salem.

http://www.etsu.edu/reece/default.asp

Exhibit overview

My plywood people, from my big installation"Quantum Confusion", enjoyed the reception.

Daniel Marinelli, and instructor at Penland, had quite a few pieces, and got the big award.

A Jackson Martin wall installation. We are both in the Tallahassee International at the Florida State University Fine Art Museum in Tallahassee later this summer.

Gorgeous fiber piece by Stacey Isenbarger.

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One of my Produce Portraits just got Best in Show at the "American Still Life: Yesterday and Today" at The Bascom, in Highlands, NC. http://www.thebascom.com/ They are mixing contemporary work with a selection of 18th and 19th century work, which should be really interesting.

"Observation" oil on linen. Commentary on human migration over political borders. Historically, Still Life was always way more than stuff on a table. It was always loaded with symbolism.

Its' a very cool teaching art center, similar to Arrowmont and Penland. They have 2 really nice galleries in the main building, and a series of walking trails outside. They regularly have exhibits with sculpters who do found object outside sculpture and installation art along the trails which I love. The exhibit was juried by Kevin Grogan, Director and Curator, Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA

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Both Alison Oakes and I have work going to Target Gallery's (Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA) "In the Flesh lll". 630 entries, 28 accepted, 2 from Knoxville, and this is the 2nd time Alison has been in it! I was hoping they'd take my nude paint-flesh ladies with the glitter, but they wanted the one that has been up at the Custom House Museum in Clarksville in their "Ladies First" exhibit (along with 3 Alison Oakes paintings) since March.

http://www.torpedofactory.org/galleries/target_calendar.htm

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More upcoming exhibits and stuff:

"Point Time", a group exhibit of Knoxville artists curated by Jean Hess, that has been at the William King Museum and Slocumb Gallery, goes to Association of Visual Artists Gallery (AVA) in Chattanooga, TN this May.

http://www.avarts.org/www

Knoxville Arts in Airport, reception 5:50 -7:30 May 5th. The work stays up 'till October. (group exhibit)

http://www.tys.org/arts-in-the-airport

I'm waiting for my copy of INPA 1 (International Painting Annual 1) to arrive from Manifest Gallery Press http://www.manifestgallery.com/ I believe they are being printed now. I will also be in INDA 6 (International Drawing Annual 6) along with a couple other Knoxville area artists, and other artists from around the country and world. That publication will go to press later this year. Manifest makes awesome publications, and the gallery has really great exhibits, most of them open juried with very cool themes. Being on their mailing list is critical, I think. If you get into an exhibit, delivery to Cincinatti is easy.

Solo exhibit at Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech that opens in June.

http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/exhibitions-calendar/

Tallahassee International, starting in Sept.

http://www.mofa.fsu.edu/pages/explore/schedule.shtml

A two person exhibit at Yeiger Art Center in Paducah, KY with Christine Wuenschel in 2012

http://www.theyeiser.org/

http://www.christinewuenschel.com/ChristineWuenschel/Home.html

Nu Nudes

2011-03-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't done any serious nudes for awhile except for fairly regular life drawing sessions, and keep missing opportunities to submit to figurative and nude shows. SO-I searched a whole pile of reference photos I had taken at the Notorious Fleshpainter exhibit I helped curate a few years ago. (Those who participated or attended definately remember this night with a smile. Yes, this did happen in Knoxville. Yes, the Naked Carpenter was there, too, and he did get painted. Yes, it was fun, and nobody got arrested. John, the Fleshpainter, has unfortunately gone back to Orlando, though.) Both drawings are both full scale, free standing, charcoal and pastel pencil on plywood. And glitter. I'm still undecided on a title. Paintskins? Paintskin Glitteratti?

Do You Think We're Naked?

The boots and shoes were real. They had to wear something on thier feet. We had this event in that place next to the old Blue Cats and it was a bit nasty. Used condoms behind the plastic couches nasty.

I mention Glitter because I used lots of it it. Lt. pink, hot pink, green, bronze. I soaked it in the varnish layers where the color is. It adds sparkle that is, of course, slightly lowbrow and ironic. And make-up/beauty industry appropriated. And made a hell of a mess in the garage where I spilled some. Now if I get lucky-they will be going somewhere. If not, they will wait around to go somewhere else. Hopefully. They really want to go out and have a good time.

"Ladies First", Custom House Museum, Clarksville, TN, March 3-May 1, 2011

2011-03-05T16:29:00.000-08:00

Each March, Terri Jordan, curator at the Clarksville, Tennessee Custom House Museum, examines the work female artists are producing in the state of Tennessee. This is the second year I have been honored to have been included in it. Last year's "Modern Girls" was a massive installation in the huge, three story high Crouch Gallery.

This year's exhibit, "Ladies First", was a more intimate exhibit in the museum's Orgain Gallery.

Panoramic view of one wall, with Alison Oakes. The big yellow painting behind her is a Camille Engel

Alcove view. The museum has an extensive costume collection that was integrated with the art for a very cool effect.

Work, left to right: Jennifer Otto, Tammy Dohner, Edie Maney, Melinda Peavy

Each artist was asked to communicate where they were at this point as an artist and woman. The responses ranged from historically based feminist observations to deeply personal musing.

Alison Oakes works it with the mannequins. Her triptych from her "Repulsively Beautiful" series, is to her right. All are oil on porcelain.

My installation, "Domination Extinction" (charcoal and pencil on plywood), is a deconstruction and feminist updating of Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass", which I expounded on in an earlier blog.

A detail from Sher Fick's installation "You Made Your Bed". Fick takes her own empty perscription bottles and uses fabric and found objects to create comfort scenes from her childhood spent sleeping in the same room as her sister. Her adult perscriptions for anxiety and depression successfully make her live and thrive as an artist, mother , and wife.

A detail of Miranda Herrick's post-consumer recycled food container piece. Lots of Tostinos and Cherrios! Herrick directs Mir Gallery in Nashville's dowtown Arcade Building.

Terri Jordan's self-portrait with son and dog involves lots of symbolic objects used in portraiture since the Middle Ages. White tulips I believe are for purity, dogs symbolize loyalty. To the right is a Sandra Paynter Washburn, and a Claudia Balthrop.

Some people can't handle the wine at receptions.

Hats. Amazing hats. Mid twentieth century, I believe.

The old ladies at church used to wear these when I was a kid and creep me out. Who even came up with this? Truely one of the most bizarre fashion trends in recorded history.

Alison Oakes, Sher Fick, Terri Jordan, and photographer and playwright Mitzi Cross.

Other artists in the exhibit, which can be seen 'though May 1st, are Linda Kerlin, Diane Shaw, and Cyndi McGrail.

Group Exhibit at Archetype Gallery in Atlanta

2011-02-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

I've got 3 of my Civil War reenactor lomography photos at this exhibit at Archetype Gallery in Atlanta's Studioplex on Feb. 26th and 27th. Reenactors travel around, and it is surprising to have some of them come to East Tn to act in an event, and when they start talking I realize they have no clue that this entire upper eastern part of the state supported the Union during that war. History is always complex.

The image in the poster is a detail from a photograph by Anderson Scott.

Video of the exhibit, by Chris Hutchinson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0X7c47n2cc

(My work is the B&W photography triptych)

This exhibition investigates the fascination in the reenactments of the Civil War and the linear historical context of the Antebellum South. Pageantry and romance surrounds the concepts of Secession, Slavery and the Confederacy. It is in this Romance where the Civil War is unique, whereas Germany banned symbols of the Third Reich- symbols of the Confederacy are flown with Pride & Prejudice.Where does this pride originate from, when the linear history of the War is clear, the South lost? Why are their monuments commemorating these concepts as heroic? These sentiments can be traced back to the lack of the transference of control- as what occurs at the end of War. President Lincoln did not treat the Southern Generals and leaders as traitors and treasonous- allowing most to keep there Pride & Prejudice intact. Chris Hutchinson

http://www.facebook.com/l/ac007h5fqeulW4VNyF83yC6kZ9Q/AR.CHE.TYPE

Participating artists:

Anderson Scott

Kate Windley

Bethany Collins

Denise Stewart-Sanabria

Bailey Barash

Dru Phillips

Brian Steele

Jonathan Callicutt

Whitney White

March Exhibit

2011-02-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

Custom House Museum,

Clarksville, TN

"Ladies First"

http://customshousemuseum.org/?sel=0

This is a group exhibit by museum curator Terri Jordan, that asks the question:"Who are you as an artist and a woman?" Artists in the exhibit are:

Claudia Balthrop, Mitzi Cross, Tammy Dohner, Camille Engel, Sher Fick, Mirranda Herrick, Terri Jordan, Linda Kerlin, Edie Maney, Cyndi McGrail, Alison Oakes, Shae Otto, Diane Shaw, Denise Stewart-Sanabria,and Sandra Paynter Washburn

I prefer not to look at this from a personal angle, because I don't see myself as a female artist- just an artist. My work occasionally is markedly feminist (like for this exhibit), but I'm interested in the human condition more than anything female-centric. I have always wanted to make a statement about a Manet painting that has always annoyed me: "Luncheon on the Grass". Two guys in a park who seem to full of their Bohemian artist-ness are briefly interrupted in their important philosophic and esthetic conversation to acknowledge someone watching them. They are proud because they are caught with a couple of naked groupie/muse girls. It almost seems like an indie band road trip moment.

"Domination Extinction"

charcoal and pastel pencil on plywood / installation

My reaction to it is to reconstruct of the roles the individuals are playing in the original, one that I feel is more in keeping with the reality of the 21st century. The two males are still self-involved, but are monochromatic, like old black and white photos-a relic of the past. I have appropriately placed them on a shelf. The women contain color to designate they are of the moment. My model for the big drawing actually owned this crazy skirt-almost right out of a Manet ballerina painting-but she's no ballerina. She is the observer of the situation. The woman in the far background is Anonymous-symbolic of the role female artists of the past have been made to take by their work either being attributed to males, removed to museum storage, and written out of history by male art historians. Until, of course, the time I grew up in, the latter part of the 20th century. In the course of my career, women have evolved from an occasional name in a gallery listing to a normal presence not only as artists, but historians, curators, and critics. May things never revert to the past!

Have You Seen Bob project

2011-01-16T19:49:00.000-08:00

"Have You Seen Bob" http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Have-you-seen-bob/164395610249824 is a project of Richard Legg, a British photographer http://www.tinlizard.co.uk/ . He has been contacting photographers around the world to photograph "Bob". Bob is a screen print on cardboard of a rather depressed looking kind of Hipster Dude. Collaborating photographers receive a Bob in the mail, and go about putting them in their world. I decided on a simplistic narrative bit. My Bob has had an:

Adventure in Appalachia

Bob heads to the Big City on a snowy Saturday night. Lots of pretty girls in Downtown Knoxville. They ignore Bob. Why is it always this way?

Bob heads up Rt. 75 N hoping that maybe if he pays he can get some action. Wrong. The strip joints are closed. It is Sunday morning.

Bob gets a sign that he might be heading the wrong way.

Should he end it all? Of course not. That water looks freezing.

Bob heads for the wilderness. Maybe he should just live in a cave.

Could he survive here?

Not likely. A giant icicle knocks Bob down and nearly kills him.

Bob decides he'll make another go of it, and heads back to Knoxville. Maybe if he takes his hands out of his pockets and looks up once in a while people won't think he's a total drip. Maybe he just needs a latte.

Two January Exhibits

2011-01-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

POINT TIME: A Confluence of Artists
A multimedia group exhibition of Knoxville artists curated by Jean Hess

An innovative showcase of visual artists representing a specific micro-locus in East Tennessee will be co-presented by the Slocumb Galleries at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN, and the William King Museum in Abingdon, Virginia with the sponsorship of the Carnegie Hotel. The exhibition, "Point Time: A Confluence of Artists" opens this coming January 2011. Knoxville arts writer and painter Jean Hess, whose own work and interests focus on geographic linkages and historical memory, is the invited curator. Hess has taken the unusual curatorial track of seeking out 38 Knoxville-area artists operating at myriad levels of public awareness to create work ranging from experimental media to traditional crafts. Rather than attempt to focus on work that proves a curatorial point, or that supports a personal agenda, Hess has chosen to make a painting that encapsulates in abstract form the geographic coordinates of specific places where the show's artists have lived before moving to Knoxville.

Participating artists are: Chad Airhart, Emily Bivens, Sara Blair, Shirley Brown, Robmat Butler, Bill Capshaw, Nick de Ford, Don Dudenbostel, Alan Finch, Stacey Fletcher-Reynolds , Diane Fox, Thaddeus George, Marcia Goldenstein, Carl Gombert, Jorge Gomez del Campo, Joyce Gralak, Barron Hall, Amira Haqq, Briena Harmening, Brian Jobe, Lauren Karnitz, Cindy Latham, Beauvais Lyons, Deborah McClary, Fritz Massaquoi, Evan Meany, Jessica Meyer, Althea Murphy-Price, Alison Oakes, Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Zachary Searcy, Jason Shoemaker, Jered Sprecher, Emily Taylor, Patricia Tinajero, Jessie Vanderlaan, Hawa Ware, David Wolff.

For more information about the artists and the exhibition, please contact curator Jean Hess at jeanhess@bellsouth.net. William King Museum’s Reception: is on January 11, Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. with exhibit duration from January 11 to 31, 2011. For information about the William King Museum, kindly email curator Elyse Gerstenecker at egerstenecker@wkmuseum.org or call 276.628.5005.
The Slocumb Galleries’ Curator’s Lecture & Closing Reception is on January 28, Friday, with the lecture starting at 4 p.m. Ball Hall Auditorium, reception follows at the Slocumb Galleries. The exhibit duration is from January 12 to 28, 2011. The Slocumb Galleries is open Mondays thru Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with extended hours during receptions and on January 15, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 430 p/m/ in commemoration of Governor Bill Haslam’s Inauguration. Questions about the Slocumb Galleries may be referred to SG Director Karlota Contreras-Koterbay at contrera@ets.edu or call 423.483.3179.
Image courtesy of artist Jean Hess

Denise and Rose do Art Basel Miami Beach

2010-12-08T06:17:00.001-08:00

Art Basel Miami Beach, 2010. Fourteen satellite fairs. Not even the Swiss can beat this, because they don't have the satellite fairs, some of which are better than Miami Basel, anyway. So, nya nya.
There is nobody better to attend an event like this than someone you went to art school with...someone who gave all the nude models and professors their nicknames (and because of that I barely remember their real names!) Rose and I spent a couple of days trying to hit as much as we could. We started off at the tent fairs, which were clustered together:
1. Art Miami- (21 years running, and the anchor of the fair) excellent emergent and progressive fair.
2. Scope art fair-not quite the level of Art Miami, but still some good stuff.
3. Art Asia-in the same tent as Scope, but disapointing to the point of OMG this is embarrasing-why is this hobbyist lady and her sub-Bob Ross landscapes here, and why is she hustling Rose?
4. Red Dot fair. Seriously, who came up with this name?? (when a gallery sells a piece, they put a red dot next to it) This is like backwoods country singers that name themselve Johnny Paycheck or Eddy Money. I ran into work there from two artists I exhibit with at different galleries, and thankfully thier work stood up well, but 80% of what was in that fair was substandard, or grossly commercial, or decor-centric.

(Disclaimer: Rose and I have been taking indulgent pictures of each other for 35 years, and I have included many for that sense of "You are There". I have observed restraint by not posting the craziest ones, so don't complain.)

The earliest fair opened at 11 AM. These people must all be nocturnal. Where is the press pass lady? Pressing the sign didn't work.

We decided to play with the outside sculpture while we waited. I only brought sandles. Stoopid. A cold front had just moved in, and everyone else was wearing cute boots.

Recess time for Rose.

Mushrooooooms.........

Detail of very cool piece that was in the window of Red Dot. It's all rolled up pieces of paper.

Rose never paid to get in (whoops). Well-they didn't stop us! I think it was because I had a press pass around my neck and Rose was caboosing my train.

Art Miami

This Alex Guofeng Cao image is made up to thousands of tiny photos of the face of Botticelli's Venus.

Rose mimicking the whole image. The gallery (China Square Gallery, NY) had brought a bunch of these huge works down-each with it's own magnifying glass next to it.

Rose loved this Tad Lauritzen Wright painting in the David Lusk (Memphis) space. (She works in the plant and landscape business). That was the only Tennessee gallery at the event. Almost everybody is either NY, Berlin, NY, London-But of course the artists they represent come from all over the world. I had a few people look at me like I had either a 3rd eye or a maybe a flask of moonshine on me when they found out I'm from Tennessee. Those art capital people are so provincial. They need to get out more.

Hung Lui, who uses vintage photos from both her family and random second hand stores in China as source material, has made a huge style leap from painterly, drippy paintings to resin-covered. She paints on 2 thick layers-you can see the shadows from the over-brushing. It's a good evolution for her, I think.

More shiny transparent stuff. I think they are images trapped in acrylic resin that are fused beind the frame glass.

Cool little puppet people from Lesley Dill. We saw quite a bit of her work around, but the most continuously visible person in all the fairs was Barbara Kruger, and after that Cindy Sherman. Yes-both female. About time that male domination thing died.

Had some fun discussing stuff with a big Shen Shao skeleton.

Rose did perfomance art with a Li Hungbo expandable wood sculpture. Faaaabulous.

I get down with some nekkid guys. Darn-who did these....I think it was Russian. I like. Of course, they were cut outs. And nekkid guys.

Mike and Doug Starn photography...lots of overlapped prints on paper with varnish. The tactile quality was gorgeous.

Cool mosaic-made of......................

Ta da!

Damn-who did these-they are blobby sculture with video of distorted speaking faces projected on them. The voices are distorted, too. Blobby, creepy and hilarious. I want one.

Scope

When we moved the car so it wouldn't get towed we drove by this. Crocheted. it went along with an entire crocheted room inside Scope. Etsy.com? The car was funny-the rest was lame. I think it would have been more effective if she'd TP'ed everything.

http://www.myartspace.com/ has a competition every year amongst their site users for the small space they rent out in Scope. There are 3 top winners who work is on the walls, and 20 semi-finalists who are on a computer slide show (Robmat Butler, UTK/ MFA recipient was a slide show winner last year). SO-the above diptych was a winner but all I could think of was that this person needed to kiss Alison Oakes ass because her Repulsively beautiful series is far better than this. http://www.alisonoakes.com/

See if you agree.

They Still Call me Dick-Neck. (I like)

It was Super Hero Time! (Hug that bear for me honey...squeeze him-fabulous!)

The guys came on next and seemed a bit self-consious, maybe because they didn't have enough space. I think they were afraid they'd crash into someone.

Shepard Fairey wall
Primary Flight, the street art fair, was everywhere, and there was a massive effort in the Wynwood District where Pulse is held. It went even a step further with new restaurant, Wynwood Kitchen and Bar. The entire inside is mostly Fairey-land (Shepard Fairey) from floor to ceiling, BUT outside I saw everyone from Clare Rojas to.....

Stelios Faitakis

Nunca

Rose performs with Ryan McGinniss

Not sure who did this one.

Not sure about this one, either, but I pulled its finger

The inside of Wynwood Kitcher and Bar. Limited menu, but what they make is good. The inside work appeared to be wallpapered on, not direct murals. I could see lots of surface creases. The staff was really nice, and it was just the 1st week open. Usually servers are freaked out at this time.

We Arrive At Art Basel

Now, you'd think that the best and most amazing work anywhere would be here. Not true. Basel is good at attracting lots of the hype-hyped. Invisible work with massive artist statements that include extensive evidence of thesaurus usage. Conceptual work that is supposed to be sooo wink wink clever but that reeks of art school assignments to anyone who has ever been inside a studio. Stuff that makes Rose and me roll our eyes, and go-oh, no, not that shit again, but if a gallery can make it seem "important" to someone with rolls of cash that wants to trade art like stock, WTF? Why not?

OK. The outboard motor is on the wall. (5 x-tra points for painting it white) The alligator-esque tire treads are on the floor. "If want a grade from me, you better do a good job defending this, sculpture, freshman!" At least he was working with actual ideas.

Yes, It is Snarky Time!

Very clean, yes, but the credit goes to the person who initially designed the kayak and paddles, not to the murderer who desecrated them-I could have run a bunch of rivers with that boat, you monster!

Uh, huh....ok...They paid how much for this space for THIS? Yes, very nice drips with the tiny spray nozzle, but drippage is getting so old, don't you know. This gallery was from Barcelona. Is 'Featherfucker" Spanish slang? Or does it say something worse?
To be fair, I'll show you what was in the rest of the gallery....next image.

Yup. And, no, the empty rectangles DON"T mean someone bought something and took it away with them. They are emptly rectangles. I wanted to slap someone. BUT

I suddenly saw this man and he made me want to do the happy dance. (His wife is somewhere-she was dressed identically.)

This Mickalene Thomas also made me happy. Glitter and rhinestones and color. Low art materials, high art references, who cares. It's cool.

Then we got lunch and it was x-tra happy time. Check out the presentation on the tuna rolls.

More cool work. Nyoman Mosriadi. "Tragedy". The word is carved into his chest.

And this. I'm not sure who did it-Anthony James? We had too much fun looking at the lights and how they worked with the infinity mirrors to check. It was the size of a phone booth so we could both fit and swing a camera.

Nick Cage. They are all covered with buttons like the suits the Pearlies wear. I'd love to see what's used as armature underneath.

Detail...someone's had fun in the dollar store, and what they do with it kicks ass:

Mondongo. I don't think it is one person-but a collaborative group from Argentina. It is also the name of a soup.

Not sure. I like maps-and OCD motivated work. you can spend an hour just exploring this.

Robert Longo!!!!!!! Men in Cities series!!!! I'd only seen one of these drawngs before and it wasn't as good as this one. I was surprised to see it because this work is decades old. Last time I saw his work at ABMB it was his recent big sleeping heads.

This Was It.....100" x 300" of Kehinde Wiley. WOW. Diego Valasquez would piss in his pants if he saw this.(And if you think I have a bias towards figurative art-you're right, because a large area of my own practice is just that. Humans).

OK-Now I think we are at Pulse. Pulse is a fantastic fair, but I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was too focused. And talking-we ran into people I know. And I wasted lots of time hunting down coffee.

I love text. But only when it's done well, actually witty and not some crap spray paint on the wall with drippies.

Devorah Sperber. Pipe cleaner piece. You don't get more brilliant than what she does with thread spools, beads, ect. I want to see her Transporter and Beaming-In series someday in person. They are beaded curtains, done in sequence, showing the Star Treck crew dissolving.

Superman. Like a flock of birds. Shiny bar varnish on top. Nice.

The last fair we went to was PooL, which is held in the 1st 2 floors of hotel rooms in The Carlton.

All the fairs are juried to get in, but this one is affordable and accessible for independant curators and groups of artists. They have to be unaffiliated with any gallery.

My friend Adrienne Outlaw was there with Sher Fick and five other artists-most connected with Nashville, the rest from elsewhere. Very cool conceptual installation dealing with biomedical ethics. When you look through Outlaw's wall mounted breast pieces, you see either videos playing or strange objects. Fick had altered perscription bottles.

Though the fair is 5 days long, we got burned out after 2 and I spent the rest of the time at parties. Eating. Talking. And spending quality time with Vito, Rose's dog, making sure that the killer attack otter that has been running loose in Florida wasn't in their canal.

Latest Juried Exhibits

2010-11-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Evansville Museum of Art and Science, Evansville, IN

("Another Clean, Well Lighted Space" has been awarded a museum purchase prize)

55th Annual Mid- States

December 12, 2010 – March 6, 2011

Presented in partnership with the MARGARET A. CARGILL FOUNDATION
The December 12, 2010 – March 6, 2011 exhibit, 55th MID-STATES ART EXHIBITION, is a regional competition open to artists in a six state area including Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri.
Over $7,000 in purchase and merit awards, underwritten by Evansville individuals, corporations, foundations and philanthropic organizations, will be presented at the December 11th Awards Reception. Purchase awards allow the Museum to acquire works for our contemporary art collection and merit awards are an important encouragement to and recognition of regional artists.
Co-owner of ACA Galleries in New York City with her husband, Jeffrey, Dorian Bergen is an advisor to the Board of Directors of the New York Open Center, one of the largest holistic education centers in the United States. She is on the board of Faith Ringgold’s Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling and is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America and ArtTable. ACA Galleries, founded in 1932, specializes in 19th and 20th century American and European Art and Contemporary Art.

Work included:

"Mod Squad" charcoal on birch plywood 4' x 2' x 6'

"Another Clean, Well Lighted Space" charcoal on birch plywood 4' x 2' x 6'

______________________________________

Target Gallery at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA. :

"5x5 Exposed"

Nov. 5-21, 2010/ Reception, Nov. 11th 6-8PM

5x5 exposed is a small works photography exhibit that includes work from 46 artists from around the country and world.The juror is photography expert and gallery owner Kathleen Ewing.

www.torpedofactory.org/galleries/targetnews.php

I've got two lomography photographs included:

"Reenactment at 95 Degrees", inkjet on hand-subbed rag paper

"Mirage" inkjet on hand-subbed rag paper

Two fall 2010 exhibits

2010-09-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

16 Patton Gallery, 16 Patton Ave., Asheville, NC

Saturday, October 2 - Saturday, November 2, 2010
Reception: Saturday, October 2, 6 - 8 pm
Solo exhibition: "Anthropomorphic Produce."“Anthropomorphic Produce is a new series of paintings using vegetables and fruit acting out human situations and behavior. Human migratory patterns, so utterly important in human history for survival, have geographic and political boundaries today that create very complicated situations. Racial differences create us vs. them scenarios. Human rights are violated. Is that what's going on in these paintings, or are they just hyper-realist renderings of light saturating the color and texture of both common and exotic produce?”

Observation

Three-Quarters

Packed In

Mango Pattern

Impaled Strawberries

Hot Strung

Fruit Spear

Confrontation

Conference

Blood Oranges

The Arts Company, 215 5th Ave. of the Arts, Nashville, TN

First Saturday Art Crawl Reception: November 6, 6-9 pm Donuts Behaving Badly: An Anthropomorphic Food Exhibit
In my “Donuts Behaving Badly” series, all forms of scandalous behavior are imagined. If it is hard to guess what is happening, the painting titles, such as “Binge and Purge”, and “The Immaculate Confection” give it away. Donuts are wonderfully fleshy and human, and can lay about with far more lethargy than even a dog on a hot day. The first series used the powdered and overfilled donuts I’ve purchased from Dunkin Donuts as subjects. The second series contain the more tan and muscular Krispy Kreme donuts acting out “The Seven Deadly Sins”.

Smear

Knocked Out

Lust

The Immaculate Confection

The Morning After

Boston Creamed

Binge and Purge #2

Drunks

Wrath

Pride

Sloth

Greed

Gluttony

Envy

Bite

Time to Eat the Donuts/8-2010

2010-09-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

I was one of the 1st to exhibit in the new Clayton Center or the Arts complex at Maryville College in their niiiice double gallery space (BlackberryFarms Gallery) in the smaller building. (The construction had so many corporate sponsors that virtually every detail of the place has names. Dr. Mark Hall, head of the art dept., even dedicated a toilet stall to someone. It is in the men's room, so I was never able to verify the brass plaque that is on one of the doors.....but it is very amusing stuff).

My exhibit was titled "Eat Me", and was compiled of anthropomorphic food paintings. Everybody focused on the donuts, of course..and the impaled strawberries. We even had donuts at the reception. I was kind of disapointed that the exhibit didn't attract any cops, but a security guard did walk through at one point.

Quantum Confusion: Plywood and Plexiglas Drawing Installation

2010-07-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

It's been one year in process, and I finally installed it today for a group figurative exhibit: Continuare: The Figurative Tradition in Contemporary Art , at the Ewing Gallery at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The exhibit runs from Aug. 1- Sept. 12th and also includes East Tennessee artists Bain Butcher, Judy Condon, Lynda Evans, and Carl Gombert; Asheville artist Virginia Derryberry, and Florida artist Thaddeus Erdahl. There will be an afternoon closing reception Sun., Sept. 12th. Gallery summer hours are Tues. -Fri. 12-4, and will be switching to regular hours when school opens.

There have been many theories given to the existence of many, or parallel worlds, both in the disciplines of Quantum Physics and Metaphysics. They range from solid research that can deliver actual theory-proving data, to the more esoteric work of Lewis and Kripke, which has a tendency to sound like the conversation of a couple of 1960’s era grad students on acid. Popular media occasionally tries to produce their own version of these theories, from an episode of “Lost in Space” that scared the pants off me when I was a kid by showing characters on the program walking into another world through a special mirror portal, to the contemporary and excellent Fox network series “Fringe”. Whether any parts of these theories eventually prove to be true remains to be seen, but with further developments in the world of Quantum Physics, we are constantly reminded that the more we discover, the less we know.
My own installation plays with the portal idea, using Plexiglas (instead of a mirror). The Physicist, with her pencil and clipboard, is the only alert presence, as the other participants complacently participate in something they haven’t figured out yet.

The installation size is approximately 8’W x 16’L x 8’H, and contains eleven full scale charcoal portraits on cut-out plywood. They are mounted on black ½” plywood floor stands. Two sheets of 4’ x 8’ Plexiglas are both sandwiched between emerging and disappearing people, and are also stabilized by cables connected to the ceiling.

rear view

right angle

detail

Recent Exhibits: Plywood People

2010-03-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

From fall '09 to spring '10 my plywood people have been going on road trips and having fun. Most recent is Modern Girls, Contemporary Tennessee Women in Art at the Custom House Museum in Clarkville. It is an invitational survey put together by Terry Jordan, curator. They just did an amazing job installing this exhibit. There is a ton of Adrienne Outlaw's work which added even more interactivity with viewers, but what is cool is that work that is interactive with viewers tends to be interactive with the work of all the other artists in the gallery.

URBhana 3

From Clarksville Online:

"Women’s History Month at the Customs House Museum is a special treat for the eyes. Opened on the second of March, Modern Girls is a show of contemporary works by Tennessee’s foremost female artists.
The exhibit includes known painters April Street, Edie Maney, Julia Martin, and Jennifer Utterback, woodturner Brenda Stein, installation artists Adrienne Outlaw and Sher Fick, award winning watercolorist Anne Bagby, multi-media artist Denise Stewart Sanabria, sculptor Irene Ritter and Annamaria Gundlach, and photographer Caroline Allison. Curator, Terri Jordan, says of the exhibit, “I wanted to focus this Women’s History Month on some of the talented women currently making their way in the art world, that have a connection to Tennessee."

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I put in two new pieces that are part a Quantum Physics conceptual installation that is part of a group figurative exhibit this summer at the Ewing Gallery/UTK. , and an older piece, "Aaron".

Karley

panoramic gallery view

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Nashville's 1st Saturday Gallery Crawl at the Arts Company. Most of the work was from the abandoned photo album series I had at the Tennessee Art Commission Galleries "Skeletons in Closets" back in July '08 with Laura Chenicek. Fun night, tons of people out on a nice, warm night.

Who are the Live Humans? If I cut out the color saturation, it is harder to tell. A two-person exhibit this winter with Atlanta painter Corey Barksdale at Creative Art Guild in Dalton, GA.

Corey's wife and daughter check out Daddy's paintings.

Pre-reception-only flat people.

Another big installation in a long corrider gallery at The Renaissance Center in Dickson, TN
Also showing in this cluster of three exhibits was Greg Schlanger and Jodi Hays.

Back in fall '09- winter '10, seven of my people went to The William King Museum in Abingdon, VA for their biennial survey of contemporary art in the Appalachian Highlands, "From These Hills". Mod Squad looks particularly interesting viewed through Travis Graves' "Action and Consequences". There was a ton of really cool emergent work in this exhibit.-video, installation, conceptual pieces using found objects, and bizarre and wonderful photography.

Latest Donuts

2009-12-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

Bite. It's a big one- 42" x 48". I'm eager to finish this series (4 more to go) so I can buy more donuts to set up the next series.

Snake Box

2009-12-06T11:01:00.000-08:00

This works-my husband's 1st reaction was that it was real. The graphite snake drawing is fused on mylar, then nailed on supports that project out of a dowel you can rotate with knobs on the side of the frame. I filled the box (Had to hand build it) with ink jet prints on vellum of leave scans, and real milk weed seeds. 3 views during rotation:

2009-11-08T06:21:00.001-08:00

The latest Donuts Behaving Badly painting: "Boston Creamed". Who knew donuts could express so much about the human condition?

Elkmont Project: Ghost Town

2009-10-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

Elkmont is decaying at an alarming rate, and the Park Service does not have the $6,000,000.00+ to initiate Alterative C, which is to preserve 19 cabins and remove the rest. Though they did release plans to entirely re-do the Cades Cove Road in March 2010 today, nothing has been announced regarding Elkmont. I have a fear that the earmarked cabins will be beyond saving once they do have the capital.

As an artist and photographer, my project is to record what is left of Elkmont. Through photographing primarily the interiors of the cabins, I intend to preserve the spirit of the lives that evolved within these summer homes. The floor plans, colors, and details inside these places radiate the joy and abandon that overtake people when removed from the responsibilities of their regular lives. The simple beauty has me obsessed and mesmorized by the cultural remains of a once vibrant community. I have well over 100 finished images, and hundreds more that are simple documentation.

The exhibit installation will involve having the work divided on the walls according to which of the three areas of the community they were taken in. Photos of the deterioration of the floors will be printed large and mounted directly on the gallery floor, where they will be interspersed with large, hanging photos of interiors.

Part 2 of my project, (after I get a worthy venue for the exhibit) is to sit down with former owners to scan scan family photos to offset my own, to get a solid sense of history. I already have a few vintage photos from public collections.

A few sample photos of my work:

One of the houses furthest up Society Hill

This is the Murphy Lodge from Millionaire's Row (next to Little River trail) below, which belonged to a friend's aunt.

The Parrot House on Millionaire's Row

I call this one "Scream".

Another shot from a house far up Society Hill.

The house my freind's family owned when she was a kid. They called it Oh-So-Cozy. Yes, that is a pink dress hanging in the window.

Inside a Daisy Town house.

An upstairs scene from Society Hill. You can never have too many colors of paint.

This was written on the living room floor, obviously by the owner, inside the Thomas House on Society Hill. "You Take My Home, My Wings Grow With Pain, Good Bye.

2009-09-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Binge and Purge: Donuts Behaving Badly #2. 22" x 56". Next up is Boston Creamed. I wonder if they'd like these for the Dunkin Donuts Corporate headquarters? Krispy Creme?

2009-09-02T06:17:00.001-07:00

How many days should you go 'till you fire your server provider? They were hacked on a Fri., it is Wed. and my control panel and website are still down. And-how lousy are they to GET hacked? Did they not regularly hire a penetration tester to check their network security?

2009-07-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

It is finished-I decided not to blur the jelly.

One of a series of jelly donut paintings. It's all about sex and violence. This one is 6' wide, and it isn't finished yet. If I stare at the photo of the painting, the parts that need resolving jump out more. I was thinking of titles- Our Lady of Duncan Donuts- no, that is too Boston. I think Donut Distress.

More Fractured Wood Pieces

2009-07-17T05:48:00.001-07:00

Experimenting with fractured imagery by drawing and ink-jet print transfering on 1" wood blocks and direct printing on squares of paper subbed with digital ground, then stitching them together and treating with wax.
The top is graphite and silver leaf, mounted on plywood covered with blackboard paint and white chalk. The entire piece is encased in a 2" deep frame. Buying this many blocks required having to go to Hobby Lobby, which makes me sick. I go out of my way to avoid patronizing this company, which has no respect for our 1st Amendment rights. They took out one page ads in papers across the country July 4th filled with their selective propaganda. The irony of a company with this attitude dealing with art supplies is fairly bizzare, but the name of the store says it all. I quess they aren't aware of artists who aren't hobbyists.

This one is ink jet transfer on gesso, with chalk text on steel gray heavily textured paper in another deep frame.

Ink jet print on paper prepared with Golden's digital ground. The wax I brush on later stiffens the thread used to stich together the squares. It is mounted on course linen and a strip of Canal (awesome Canadian paper company) rag paper with rows of steel pins-kind of like how they mount Japanese scrolls. I don't like the tiny bit of white paper protruding from the sides, though. X-acto time.

2009-07-17T05:48:00.000-07:00

The biggest photo-based piece-ink jet on mylar prepared with digital ground. The 8" x 8" squares are sewn together with ribbon, and hung on curtain rods. It is translucent. Total size: 3' x 4'. I originally wanted to have a double layer piece where you could see a text layer through the face. Too cluttered.

Ongoing Work on Wood

2009-07-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

I have an ongoing series of work connected to a series of portrait photos based on an imaginary paleolithic tribal culture.

This first one is 65" H x 48" W on birch plywood, with a sheet of plexi overlapping the face. The face markings were painted transparently in acrylic on the plexi. It is wired to the top and bottom of the framing to rest 1/2 inch off the face, so as to create a barrier and to cast shadows.

This is photo transfer on gesso, embedded feathers, with blackboard paint and white charcoal for the writing. It's about 2' x 4'. I use inkjet prints to transfer, not photocopies. They transfer well when printed on photo quality inkjet paper, and my archival ink in my printer is superior to photocopy ink. A final coat of matte varnish keeps the "paper" quality of the surface.

I'm working on a huge series of fractured imagery on wood cubes of various sized, and tiled paper or wood.
This one below is rather small-charcoal on squares of plywood with a very heavy coating of gloss acrylic medium. They are glued on plexi rods, and mount right on the wall. I drilled holes in the back top of the rods, and they are inserted into white panel nails. This piece, along with the one below, will be in "Face It", a national portrait exhibit at the University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery on Gay Street in Knoxville from July 15 -Aug. 8. There will be a First Friday Aug. closing reception that night.

This other piece in the "Face It" exhibit, ironically, are life size charcoal on plywood drawings of the exhibit director, Benjamin McKamey (right), and his business partner from the now migratory Three Flights Up Gallery, T. Michael Martin. They had teased me during a reception earlier in the year about how I had never have done a cut-out drawing of them, so I ran off a bunch of shots of them there, and when I found out about "Face It", got the project finished and immediately submitted. Luckily, the outside juror, Carl Gombert, put it in.

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